AGH nurses rally around new contract, turn their focus toward supporting Magee negotiations

Across the street from Allegheny General Hospital on Wednesday — as production crews from the award-winning emergency room drama “The Pitt” set up nearby — the nurses who actually work at the hospital celebrated a victory of their own.

About a dozen union nurses rallied at Allegheny Commons Park on the North Side to mark an agreement on a three-year contract with Allegheny Health Network that they said invests heavily in staffing and retention and protects other important benefits. 

“In this new contract, we achieved exactly what we set out to achieve,” said Cannon Roberts, a staff nurse in the hospital’s orthopedic unit. “And that’s because of the unity demonstrated by AGH nurses across every department in the hospital.” 

SEIU Healthcare represents about 1,500 nurses and nurse practitioners at AGH.

The nurses held signs and cheered as details of the contract were read aloud, including a pay jump of nearly 16% during the life of the contract, an agreement on AI to protect staffing ratios and nurses’ clinical judgment, and a commitment to end forced rotating shifts, which require nurses to switch from days to nights within a single work week.

The gains will lead to an improved quality of care for patients at the hospital, the nurses said. Roberts credited the solidarity that already existed between the nurses and other support staff at AGH.   

“Without everybody working together, patients don’t get the care that they deserve,” Roberts said. “And that’s why everybody is in health care, because we want to help patients, we want to help people get better. That’s what our main goal is with being unionized — trying to provide the best patient care we possibly can. And unions provide that.”

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, state Reps. Aerion Abney, D-North Side, and Lindsey Powell, D-Lawrenceville, and Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council President John Galuska joined the nurses at the celebration. 

The focus of the rally did not remain entirely on the contract or even on AGH. Instead, the nurses said they would shift their attention to supporting contract fights at other hospitals in the region.

The AGH nurses pledged to support nurses and support staff in negotiations at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital. Negotiations at the Oakland hospital started in January after the nurses there formed a union in 2025.

Ashley Greico, a NICU nurse at Magee, said at the rally that the AGH nurses “have led the way in advocating for our profession and our community.” When the AGH nurses won a $40-an-hour starting salary in their previous contract, Greico said, UPMC and AHN had to increase pay system-wide to keep up.

“You've shown us all what it looks like when nurses have a voice in decisions that impact our profession and our patients,” she said. “At Magee, we are proud to stand with AGH nurses.”

Similarly to AGH, staffing levels and retention are among the key issues amid contract negotiations at Magee.

Greico said the investment in retention that AGH nurses earned in their contract meant a lot to her because she only became the nurse she is today through learning from more experienced nurses. 

“Unfortunately, across the profession, many of our most experienced nurses are leaving the bedside,” she said. “They’re leaving because their commitment comes at a cost.”

That cost — in addition to the grueling hours and often traumatic work — includes salaries that increase by smaller increments and eventually plateau.

“I have spoken with some of our most experienced nurses who have told me they haven’t gotten a real raise in nearly 20 years,” Greico said. “When I learned about this and saw how many nurses left the bedside because of wage stagnation, I realized it was time for nurses to have a real voice in our profession and win a union contract that invests in all of us.

“And that’s what AGH nurses have done. You’ve set a clear model.” 

The AGH nurses plan to support the nurses at Magee in more ways than simply expressing solidarity.

“We’re going to be doing some rallies, and we’re going to be calling the nurses so they know they are supported and they don’t feel alone,” Roberts said. “They’ve been fighting for a contract for 11 months, and UPMC has not given them a pay or staffing proposal yet. That’s ridiculous.”